


See the sun rise now, this has to end

by endlessblu



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, F/M, Haircuts, Self-Loathing, Star Wars: The Old Republic - Crisis On Umbara Spoilers, but her presence is key, well she's not in it really, yes it's that haircut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:41:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27724969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endlessblu/pseuds/endlessblu
Summary: He couldn't change his face, but he could change his hair. Maybe then they could both see someone different, and blame him for all the pain instead.Crisis on Umbara spoilers. Theron cuts his hair.
Relationships: Female Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython/Theron Shan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	See the sun rise now, this has to end

“I love you, Theron. Please come home.”

Her image flickered out, just as it had the last time, and the time before that. The desperate plea lingered in the air, ringing in his ears and filling the silence of the empty ship. Her voice, but not the voice of the Alliance Commander, the powerful figurehead capable of making grand speeches and inspiring others to fight for the cause. Instead, the sobs of the woman he loved, broken and begging, and all because of him. 

“I love you too...but I can't.”

She wouldn't hear his words. Maybe she wouldn't ever hear his words. Maybe this reckless mission would only end in failure, and all this pain he caused them both would be for nothing. 

(Or maybe it would succeed, and she wouldn't take him back anyway. Something about that thought was even worse.)

_I'm doing this for the Alliance. For you. For everything we built together._

Words he needed to cling to, to repeat over and over in his mind, the only corner of safety left where the GEMINI droid couldn't listen in. 

_Even if I have to break you in the process._

The sentence that always followed, that he didn't want to think despite the truth it held. The inescapable thought, no matter what rationalisations he made. The part that no amount of reasoning and efforts to justify his actions could ever be enough to deny. 

He retreated to the fresher and splashed his face with water as tired, bloodshot eyes stared back at him from the mirror, puffy and red from holding in tears he wasn't allowed to cry. Eyes laced with spite and disgust as they looked upon his face, the same way he'd made them look at her as he spat out those words and pointed the blaster towards her. Every second spent with his reflection served as a reminder: _that_ was what she'd seen, _that_ was the person who'd torn apart the heart of the woman he loved. 

But if he had to make her hate him, so be it. Maybe that would make it easier for her. Or him.

He snorted. _Yeah, keep telling yourself that._

Nothing about this could ever be easy. Easiness was being with her, had been from the day he'd recruited her for the operation on Korriban and set into motion a chain of events they could never have seen coming. The galaxy warred, barely resting between battles, yet through it all he'd found her. Not just someone he could work with, but someone to confide in, to trust and give more of himself to than he ever had before, that he could share the same space with and not feel like either of them was intruding. Everything became that bit simpler when they were together. Destroying all that took barely a minute, but not a second of it could be called _easy._

Still that face looked him back. It wouldn't leave. 

He grabbed the clippers from their resting place in the tiny cupboard of the fresher, left on the same setting as they always were. She always loved his hair. Her fingers would climb through it, making it a mess every time they kissed. She watched him style it every morning, teasing him for taking so long (only making him take longer, just to hear her laugh about it). The first time she said she loved him, he was doing his hair. She told him she could watch him do it every single day. But his hair could change. His face couldn't, but that could. 

Maybe then she wouldn't have to love him. She could see someone different, not the person who broke her heart. 

The clippers buzzed in his hand, louder than they were supposed to sound. A vibration that made his hand shake, as if it wasn't doing so already. 

He could make himself a stranger. If someone else stared him back each time he looked in the mirror, then at least he could blame them instead for doing all of this. 

He held the clippers at the base of his scalp, drawing one last deep breath as he began to shave. Soft dark hair drifted away, gathering in a pile at his shoulders and falling to the floor. Bare skin emerged, fresh and newly exposed, smooth to the touch. For a new person. Theron Shan the betrayer, the traitor. The role he had to play. 

He was a spy, after all. It was nothing new, just part of the job. Take on a new persona, even if it was still the same name. Detaching yourself, separating off parts of your personality, they were all just things that needed to be done for the sake of the mission.

It didn't normally hurt like this.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Beginners' by Slow Club


End file.
